


The Inferno

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha), littleststarfighter



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Established Relationship, M/M, Separations, That's Not How The Force Works, assumed death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 18:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11491902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleststarfighter/pseuds/littleststarfighter
Summary: For Hux and Ren, the war is over....or perhaps, it's all just beginning again.(Based on the amazing art of @littleststarfighter.)





	The Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> As happens to me on the regular (because she is amazing), I was inspired by [@littleststarfighter's art of an imprisoned Hux](http://littleststarfighter.tumblr.com/post/161772855832/how-the-mighty-have-fallen-so-this-is-the-great) to write...whatever it is, that this story turned out being. Much as I can't take credit in any way for the art, the gestalt of the idea is also hers; I just took some of what she said and ran with it. 
> 
> As with most things I write, there is more to the story, but I'm kind of wary of what I've already written and am not sure if people would want more. Feel free to let me know in comments, or hit me up on [tumblr](http://claricechiarasorcha.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/claricecsorcha).
> 
> The fic title, incidentally, comes from [a song by Emma Shapplin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElQPx-txigk) from the movie _Red Planet_ ; it's a terrible fucking movie, but the OST is amazing. <3

The first time it happened, Hux chose to assume that his internal voice had, for reasons unknown, simply decided to take on a timbre both familiar and fatalistic. It wasn’t as if he’d exactly been able to dwell on either the logistics of nor the reasoning for it. Engaged in a free for all fistfight with two other inmates, there was no time to think on the fact that he would never have known about the approach of the third if not for the sudden whisper in his left ear.

_Behind you_.

It had been but a little. But it had also been enough. He’d feinted from the approaching elbow of the larger of his two original opponents, twisted on his braced back leg, and thrust both balled fists into the face of the man behind. It had driven his nose up into his skull, felling him to the floor in that one fierce blow. Hux hadn’t paid the man much attention after that, only noting he seemed to have been removed from proceedings for the conceivable future. Instead he’d turned back to the others, thoughts consumed only with what would come in the seconds that immediately followed.

It turned out that he’d killed him. Even later, Hux didn’t much consider the matter – it was hardly the first time, though he’d tended to steer clear of murder by his own hands after graduating the Academy – but the voice itself had lingered long. That low slow drawl, caressing his skin like the cool press of vacuum and void.

_Behind you_.

But it would not be the only time. Hux had excellent instincts, honed from youth and fine-tuned by the rigors of a life lived in military exile. But even he could not put every one of his subsequent victories upon his own shoulders. Not in a place like this, not here. That voice came to him, again and again, and even though Hux would never have relied solely upon its aid, he was not the type of man to ignore a perfectly viable resource.

The matter reached a new level the day he encountered four less than amiable inmates upon one of the lower floors, and with not a guard in sight.

By this stage in proceedings, there remained few enough individuals who would choose to interfere with him, particularly if they themselves were alone. Yet being in a group could give even the most powerless of individuals the illusion of strength, and of sure glory – and that was something Hux understood all too well, given he had headed up the Stormtrooper programme in the wake of his father’s own unfortunate demise.

“So.” The de facto leader of the group stepped forward first: a muscle-bound sweatstain of a man, hair cut back almost to its tatty roots. “ _General_.” And when he smiled, he revealed a mouth filled with blackened teeth and ragged bleeding gums. “Shall we see how _you_ like taking a few orders, then?”

Even dressed only in the dank grey of the prison’s miserable garb, Hux stood straight-backed and sure. “You believe you can give them?” he asked, disdain dripping from his words like acid. And the beastly man only grinned wider, skin folding in sharpened creases about gimlet eyes and rounded cheeks.

“I think I’d _like_ to teach you to take them.”

Already he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, feeling the spring in the lean muscles of calves, of thighs. “I learned my lessons long ago,” he said, taking in his surroundings even as he never once broke gaze with the man before him. “Shall I share them with you?” He asked this light, but hardly playful. “I’m not a very patient teacher.”

“But you do talk too much.” His weight moved forward, shoulders squaring like a happabore before a charge. “I can fix _that_.”

The first blow came from the left, aimed at his jaw. That alone was easily enough dodged. But even with his speed and flexibility, they had had enough forethought to box him in just enough to beat that advantage down into the ground.

From there, matters went badly, for him. Even with experience, even with arrogance, there was only so much Hux could do against four such dedicated opponents. In truth, even as he swallowed another mouthful of blood – sharp enough that he had to wonder if he’d not taken a tooth with it – he could not even be sure exactly what he’d done to make them so devoted to the cause of his own murder. Or if they even _needed_ logical reason.

But, in the end, it wasn’t as if he cared. From childhood he’d learned to fight until he could not, and he would do so now. Even when, in truth, he knew should have fallen long ago.

They were the ones who fell, in time: and they went hard. Above them, Hux still stood, faintly swaying – but not with exhaustion. He did not feel as though he were a moment away from falling. Rather, he felt energised, living, _alive_. It was as if another self had slipped beneath his skin, and bringing him a second life he had never even asked for. And he smiled down at the ruin of them, even as the worst of them staggered again to his feet. He should have been horrified, he should have been disgusted, he should have feared what might come next.

He only smiled all the wider, humming a little, not quite in tune with the energy that still shivered beneath his skin. “Are we done here?” The words came very nearly sweet. “Or would you like another lesson to take home with you, for later?”

But the voice that broke in then came sharp, mechanised; for droids, the guards of this prison had no sense of punctuality or urgency whatsoever. “That is enough.”

And Hux turned, careless, easy. “Oh.” And then his gaze narrowed in on the men behind the enforcer droid, bland and anonymous in their broad riot armour. And he raised his voice, letting it carry over the space between them like a war cry to an assembled army. “Do you want to join the class?” And he swung an arm out, encompassed the faint movement in the pile of limbs and blood at his back. “That’s fine. I always have room for eager students.”

The lead guard did not lower his blaster. “Knock him out.”

With a smile, Hux stepped forward, and into the fray. They _would_ knock him out, and he knew that. But still he’d make them work for it. Ducking away from the incapacitator probe of the droid, Hux moved into a world that was little more than a blur of fists and agony and the smell of burning ozone, of plasma pressed against skin and bruising flesh. Passing out with his teeth bared and lips pulled back into frank terrifying grin, he allowed something like a howl to tear loose from his throat with the taste of bloodied laughter.

Later, waking, he made out voices in the background before he could even consider cracking upon the swollen ruin of both eyes.

“Why do you let him keep it?”

And the other voice snorted, the aural equivalent of a sharp eye-roll. “It’s not worth the trouble of confiscating the bloody thing.”

“What’s he going to do? Break out of an armoured cell?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him to try.”

As the voices faded, their bodies turned and shifting in retreat, Hux began a slow stretch of aching limbs. With every motion kept lazy and long, he supposed he would not put it past himself, either. Brute strength had never been his way, unless his arm was a battalion of troopers stretched out across some distant battlefield. But that had been before. This was now. And here, like this, with that strange vital energy still singing and roiling in his veins, he could imagine rising from his hard cold pallet, crossing the brief length of his cell, pressing his palms against the thick durasteel of the reinforced door, and just—

Now he frowned, shaking his head, even as it danced with the mental image of bodies and blood and black black eyes, deep as the starless expanse of an empty universe. Still with his own eyes closed, he drew the tattered remnants of the cowl about himself, pressing his back into the hard mattress beneath him. The scent of the dark fabric had long since vanished, for all it had never been cleaned. Hux still fancied he could sense _him_ there: something like earth and rain, plasma and ozone. And the taste of him burned on his lips, too, like the ferrous salt of old rich blood, so like the strange fire that still blazed in his blood.

Hux did not even realise the path of his hand until it closed about the hard, pulsing ache of thickened flesh. His arousal, so distant before as to be unrecognised, now hit him full force: sweeping through his veins, thrumming in his bones, arching his back and driving up through his hips.

It had been a long time. While in a past life he had always enjoyed seeking out sex where he could find it, this cursed place had taken even grim desire from him, leaving him desolate as desert. But heat moved through him, now, in burning frank demand; his hand moved rough over his cock, the sounds from his taut lips as much pain as actual pleasure. But it only forced him to work it harder, in the twist of a wrist and a thumb harsh over the leaking head, nail catching the skin and drawing from him hissing sharp gratitude.

Writhing, now, Hux planted the soles of his feet down hard, hips still thrusting upward. With his jaw clenched, eyes still tightly shut, he let himself go, even as he only clamped down all the harder. And, too, the voice, _that_ voice, coming to him again:

_Yes, yes, Hux, please, Hux, please please please **Hux** —_

With eyes wide open, he found two more staring back into his own: dark eyes, silver-shot and deep as the pelagic sea, floating in a face of pale skin, framed by the riot of black hair he had known once even better than his own. Climax shuddered through him, every muscle stretched taut, toes curled, hips in helpless spasm, hand fisted about his cock, heat on his heaving belly, the cowl rough like callused fingertips over the skin of shoulders and throat.

“Ren,” he whispered, and closed his eyes again, against the illusion of a man long since dead. “Oh, _Ren_!”

After, Hux did not open them again for a very long time. He’d never been an imaginative person, outside the parameters of his work. He’d never wanted to be. Now, as he lay in the cooling remnants of his own and only release, for the first time he understood not only the power of such imagination – but the virulent violent misery of it, too.

 

*****

 

As the woman slipped into her borrowed office, Leia looked up from the datapad; the moment she came to a stop before her desk, she inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Report.”

The medical officer nodded her own head in return, lekku shifting over her shoulders, lips very tight. “We would not have disturbed you if it were not considered urgent, General.”

“I understand.” It still proved difficult to mute the note of irritation vibrating beneath the words. “What is your report?”

“There has been a disturbance in Kylo Ren’s containment.” The spike of sudden fear, hot and hard against her heart, would not show upon her face – still Nylaa answered to it, immediate and firm. “He is secure, but the matter itself is…peculiar.”

Now she leaned back in her chair, mouth downturned in something edging close to a frown. “What happened?” she asked, and then, just as sharp: “Do you have the surveillance footage with you?”

“I do.” Something odd first flickered across her lovely features, then resolved to near-grimace. “But I believe it might be better if I…explained it to you, first.”

Given this particular medical officer was one of the few who understood the nature of her relationship to the captured enemy militant, Leia could not dismiss such concern easily. Pursing her lips, she then firmly tamped down on anything that felt remotely like hope. “Has he woken, then?”

“Not in a conventional way, no.” Her weight shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and then back again. “He…well. You understand that he rarely reacts to outside stimuli?”

The first three days, Leia had rarely ventured from his bedside. She had kept one great callused hand always between two of her own the entire time. But it had been a battle to remember not how that same hand had plunged a saber into the chest of her husband, his own father. Rather: she had forced herself to see it again as something small, chubby, terribly close to clumsy. That had been the memory she had preferred, over this still hand of a man known to be a murderer. Just a child’s open grasp, fingers stretching out to her, eyes begging wordlessly to be lifted, to be held close, to be _loved_ —

“I understand,” she said, very quiet.

“Well.” Nylaa cleared her throat, took a moment too long to begin again. “This was no outside stimuli. At least, if it were, we could not see it ourselves.”

So briefly, she closed her eyes; there were no answers in this darkness, not for one such as her. “He communed with the Force.”

“We cannot be sure.” She looked to Nylaa, sharp and sudden; when she spoke again, it was with a slight rasp to her lovely light voice. “He seemed to be…dreaming.”

Exhaustion took her hard, though she remained straight-backed and watchful in her general’s chair. “And it affected the room around him?”

Though Nylaa’s surprise wrote itself in broad strokes across her features, such confirmation it certainly did not come as one to Leia. Ben had been so young, when that had first begun: small body thrashing, tiny hands balled to fists, face scrunched tight and alarmingly red. But he’d never screamed. He’d never made a sound, at least not in and of himself. Instead the room around him had rocked and rattled, and more than once the entire transparisteel window had shattered, leaving its sharp edges scattered in glittering gauntlet across the floor between the door and his cradle.

There had been little enough they could do for him. Even Luke, who had searched long for answers they could not be sure even existed, had been unable to bring Ben any comfort in the night and in the dark. And then one day, it had simply: _stopped_. Now, Leia supposed that their immediate relief had been a form of betrayal. She herself had been so glad for the respite that she’d never thought too long on the reasons why. Not until Ben had disappeared years later did she begin to think perhaps Snoke had had something to do with it. With Ben abruptly learning a control no-one else had ever been able to teach him.

“Yes,” Nylaa said, very low. “Yes, the room around him…reacted.”

“It’s not unexpected.” And her agony of exhaustion was not, either. “Continue to monitor the situation, and let me know if anything else changes.”

“That wasn’t…the strangest thing.”

Her brow furrowed. “Oh?”

“He…” Here she paused, again; when she spoke, again, it was as if the words themselves did not wish to be spoken aloud. “…he was thinking of someone.”

“ _Someone_.”

“He said a name.” Unhappiness radiated from her, harsh and helpless. “When…when he reached his release.”

Leia drew a breath, just a little too sudden. But when she released it a moment later she did so in a fashion very slow, and very calm. “What did he say?”

This pause was deeply pained. “Do…you want to see it, yourself?”

Leia never once let her eyes drop from Nylaa’s own. She had no desire to see her son in such a state. “What was the name, Nylaa?”

“Hux.” Her lips worked, blurted it out again as if once could never be enough. “He said _Hux_.”

The name hung between them like the body of a criminal executed upon some high scaffold, swinging gentle in a breeze as cold as her blood now felt. Leia closed her eyes, her chest too tight to take even the thought of another breath. “I see.”

And when she opened her eyes, again, Nylaa spoke quick, chin lowered to her chest; even with the datapad before her, Leia could see from her sightless gaze that she did not actually read the words displayed there. “As far as we can ascertain, he is still in the Well, and he is as secure as he can be.” Now she looked up, the dusky blue of her skin pale and strange. “As you well know, specific details…can be hard to obtain. But I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of what we have most recently been told.”

With lips pressed together, again, Leia turned her own gaze to the white-knuckled hands upon the desk before her. Nothing of the situation could be thought of as ideal. But the frank and bitter truth of the matter was that they had only so much choice in the matter. The prison they had commissioned to incarcerate their war prisoners was secure from outside forces. There was little chance they would escape, either by force or by fresh alliance. But Leia read the reports. She knew their reputation.

“I want to speak with him.”

“With Kylo Ren?” Her eyes had grown very wide. “General, he hasn’t actually woken—”

“I want to speak to Armitage Hux.” Here she shook her head, already regretting troubled thoughts spoken aloud. “But I know that’s not your area, Nylaa. Continue to monitor Kylo Ren.”

“I – of course.” Something like fear burned behind her bright eyes. It only left Leia even more tired than she had been before the woman had entered her office. “Do you think—”

“I don’t know what I think.” But she softened the sharpness of it a moment later, waving a hand towards the door. “Thank you, Nylaa. And keep me updated.”

Watched her go. Looked back to her own viewport, a small and cramped thing, thick transparisteel between her and the small, cramped world beyond. Without the Senate, the New Republic continued to lurch forward, every step hampered by squabbling and infighting and insidious spiralling _fear_. But even with Snoke dead, the Order had not fallen. The Order had not surrendered. Still they came, emerging from the shadows and darkness of the Unknown Regions without warning, without regret. Every battle against them felt to be like fighting ghosts, ephemeral and eternal.

And, again, Leia closed her aching eyes. _They_ are _ghosts. Of an Empire that never really died, perhaps_.

When she fixed her gaze upon the datapad, again, she found the file on him already open: Armitage Hux. Former General of the First Order, now prisoner of the Republic for nearly a year. He had been taken from a disabled Resurgent-class star destroyer, found drifting and dark in the space between the Outer Rim and the Unknown Regions. They would put him on trial when the war was over. If it were ever over. If he even lived that long, in the only hellhole prison strong enough to contain him, and to withstand attack from the Order itself.

For some time, for all his worth as propaganda, Leia had been concerned with only one thing: that at his side, they’d found Kylo Ren himself. He’d been in some sort of comatose trance, and not as a result of their own attack upon the destroyer. Luke had suspected it to be a result of Snoke’s death; as Master and Apprentice, they had held a deep and abiding bond that could not help but bleed deep into mind and spirit. But from the weariness of her brother, after he had gone deep into said mind, Leia knew it went deeper than even that. This had been a bond that had been with him perhaps all of Ben’s natural life. Even for a Jedi trained from birth in the Old Republic, there would be no telling if mere death could break such a thing.

And Hux had fought their separation. He had surrendered not when sedated, shifted, incarcerated. Only when told of Kylo Ren’s death did he let go, a man broken in strange and bitter fashion. Though he had never let go of the cowl. He still had it, as far as Leia knew. No-one had ever been able to wrest it from him, and they’d long since given up trying.

She could taste bitter gall at the back of her throat now, for all she told herself that she hadn’t lied to him. Not exactly. With Snoke one, Kylo Ren had no reason to exist. Only Ben could possibly remain. Kylo Ren himself could be nothing else but dead, in this reality she once again fought to build strong and true.

“But you were wrong, old woman,” she whispered, her grimace hard, hopeless. “Weren’t you?”

And the ache in her bones seemed to laugh, then, increasing as it did with every year; the grey in her hair in turn seemed to deepen every time she glanced in a mirror. Pressing her hands to the desk, Leia levered herself upward, ignoring the twinge in their swollen joints. This wouldn’t be the first time she was wrong, after all.

And she had to go on believing that there was still some way of making all of this right. Even if she had to now turn and face this darkness in her son’s soul, before she could ever dream of bringing it back to the light.

 

*****

 

_It has only but begun, but already Hux has thrown himself into a frenzy that leaves Ren cold. While he had long known the methodical nature of the man, of his obsessive need to plan and predict and_ control _, this goes beyond that. Far beyond it. Perhaps it is needful, if any of them are to survive. But Ren already feels the prickling, potent energy sparking from his skin like starfire. It makes him wonder how long even that fierce machine of mind and body can sustain such preternatural passion._

_This far into deep space, crippled as the ship is, Ren is perfectly aware their time is limited. While he had been raised in the bowels and joints and corridors of ships and speeders, he doesn’t know enough about star destroyers or battle cruisers to challenge the conclusions drawn by Hux and his engineers. And the most important of those is simple enough: the_ Finalizer _will not run again. Not easily. She is adrift in deep space, with no long-range communications or ships with the capability to travel far. Even if they had the latter, there is certainly not space enough for all her crew._

_Which only makes it all the stranger when Hux, from aboard the bridge, broadcasts his message to the ship entire._

_“If you are not dedicated to this cause,” he says, face pale and set as stone, “then you will leave.” He pauses for the barest moment, then speaks again with clipped efficiency. “The portside hangar will be the departure point. Assemble there if you wish to take your chances elsewhere.”_

_Ren cannot question the general before his officers – never mind that he has before, and entirely without regret. But this is different, now – and he waits until the bridge crew have returned to their work before he approaches Hux at the helm, voice pitched low._

_“Are you certain of this?”_

_Hux only looks forward, stars cold reflected silver in his eyes. “I won’t have them aboard my ship,” he says, certain and curt. “Not if they are not mine.”_

_Technically Ren has the authority to countermand the order. Even if he did not, it would likely be followed all the same. But he keeps his own counsel, dressed almost entirely in shadow, save for the face that has gone unmasked since the fall of Starkiller. And he bears witness as a motley crew of deserters first assembles, and then boards the ships assigned to them. Hux is equally as silent, lips thin and compressed as the ships rise, then leave the destroyer in an orderly arcing line._

_They are barely clear of the blast radius of the ship’s primary weapons when he speaks again._

_“Blow the airlocks.”_

_The lieutenant turns so sharp it is a miracle he does not snap his own neck. “What?”_

_“And then bring the ships back.” His jaw tightens, nostrils flaring in sudden serene fury. “Jettison the bodies. No ceremony will be required.”_

_The Order, for all Ren has come to it much later than those born to it, has always been about conformity and control. This is what makes it all the more remarkable, that this first lieutenant, who is as devoted to Hux as to the cause itself, still looks at him so clearly aghast._

_“Sir?”_

_“You heard me, Lieutenant Mitaka.” He turns, then, eyes the colour of unsparked flint. “Do it.”_

_His throat works – that same throat Ren had clutched in his own gloved hand, tightening in his fury. It would be easy enough to do the same now, from this distance. It would be a reminder to him, given in the fashion of his own grandfather, of the rules of Imperial command. But Ren does no such thing. He, too, only stares, wordless and expressionless as the mask he no longer wears._

_The lieutenant has paused, but of course it cannot last long. It’s not even really his responsibility, Ren thinks; Mitaka is generally a weapons specialist. But perhaps there is something Hux tries to prove, here, considering Mitaka is usually considered the most likely amongst Hux’s immediate staff to be promoted ever higher within the Order. Not that they are within the Order as Snoke commands it, now._

_Soon enough the bodies float through space, taut and silent; even had they tried to scream, what oxygen remained in their lungs would have been forced out by the vacuum at the moment of explosive evacuation – and if they had been fool enough not to do it themselves beforehand, their lungs would have ruptured with the action, besides. Ren feels little, looking at the grim parade of them in the middle distance, tangled silhouettes against distant stars. But he knows that when he turns, when he looks to Hux himself—_

_He stands alone before the bridge viewports, slim body concealed like a secret beneath the padding of tunic and greatcoat. His face is cold hard marble, the visage of some great old leader standing watch in some mausoleum._

_“General, he says, and Hux ignores him._

_“Bring the transports back,” he says, colourless frank command. “We have work to do.”_

_There is always work to do, on a ship so sprawling as the_ Finalizer _. Even when she is floating helpless in space. The desperate jump they had made to escape Snoke’s wrath, one shrouded and secreted away from even his sight, had been too much for even her advanced design. The damage they had already taken alone might have been enough, but then Snoke had never intended to leave them to such ignominious, anonymous death._

_Or at least, he will not surrender Kylo Ren so easily. Kylo Ren, he would call back to him. Even as he shudders now, Ren feels Hux’s eyes settle on him. There is only so much he can do to mask them from Snoke’s perception. But he had made a promise, and he will keep it._

_He turns to leave the bridge. It will be easier for him to maintain his concentration from a position of meditation, and the best place for him to do that is before the relic of Darth Vader. There is little he can do now to directly assist Hux, otherwise; he has little care for the logistics of what is effectively a siege, and the singularity drive that had permitted their escape had been the brainchild of Hux himself. Even his own haphazard background in starship maintenance will give the man nothing in aid in its repair._

_“Ren.”_

_He turns back. “Yes?”_

_“Take care.” The words are stiff, as formal as a commission. “You are as much a part of this as we are.”_

_The watchful eyes of the bridge are upon them both, now. When Hux had declared his breakaway from the orders of the Supreme Leader, his allies had numbered many, even with the disaster of Starkiller branded in his name. But even they had doubted the legitimacy of Ren’s own faith in this new cause. They had – correctly, as it turned out – assumed also that it would only bring Snoke’s wrath down upon them all the quicker. Not one had expected him to stay after it had happened, it seems._

_And so Ren strides forward, now, stands before their general. There he bows his head, looks up, meets those cool clear eyes with his own._

_“I am here,” he says, simple, and achingly true. And there he turns, and moves back to his own quarters, a deep pulsing headache thrumming both behind his eyes, and in his gut._

_Days pass. Ren spends much of them in deep meditation, rarely rousing himself from his mental mindscape, his communion with the Force. He can feel Snoke’s presence near him, like some great eye opened wide in wrathful demand. But, worse than that – is the memory of his voice. It had always been that_ voice _, in the beginning. Whispers, low and sweet, gentle in a way Ben Organa Solo’s parents so often could not have been. Oh, they were never cruel. He can admit that, now. But they had never_ understood _. It feels to him as though they never even tried. And so, Snoke, that knowing, soft voice from so close behind his own tangled mind, it had called to him, encouraged him, comforted him—_

_The gravitational generator is weakening. When Ren walks the dark corridors of the dead ship he feels lightness in a way he has never known while moving about before. It is as if he is rising from the ground with every step, his body like a string stretched taut between the deck and some great helium-filled balloon. All the ballast is falling away – and it is but inevitable, that the thread will soon snap._

_He does not need to eat when his body is in such complete hibernation. But now he is wakeful, he is suddenly ravenous. But he does not know what rationing systems Hux has in place; he barely knows how much time has passed, though a brief flicker over the ship tells him the crew numbers the same as it had when he had left it last._

_And he can feel Hux, too bright, burning like the heart of a dying star. And he follows it as if summoned._

_Of course he is upon the bridge. Ren doubts he has left it in the time he himself has been gone, save for the most needful of basic functions. His face is drawn in harsh broad strokes of pale white flesh, shadowed in stress; his eyes are too bright, hands clenched in permanent fists. Ren moves as a ghost along the catwalk, his own aching empty stomach quite forgotten._

_At his side, again, he speaks to the man alone. “Can we speak, General?”_

_“Ren.” Hux’s eyes are fixed upon the screens before him, their endless ever-changing scroll of data. “I had not expected you.” Even as he frowns, darts a hand forward to pause the flow of information, he adds, “How is your shield?”_

_“It holds.” It is a short answer, as is his own question. “And your drive?”_

_“The needed repairs seem beyond our reach.” Raising his hand, he lets the screen return to its endless refresh. “But they are not impossible.”_

_Nothing is, to one such as Hux. Ren is suddenly very tired. But Snoke had taught him long ago to disregard the needs of his own body, to push against the limits of even his mind. The Force can sustain him, as long as he can control it._

_And Ren has never been without the Force._

_“General,” he says, again, and this time does not wait for acknowledgment before adding: “Your office?”_

_Of course he does not look up. “I should remain here.”_

_“There is something I wish to discuss with you.” Then, as much an emphasis as the period at the end of the previous sentence: “_ Alone _.”_

_That earns him a sharp look, given sideways. And he is_ beautiful _, even in such disaster. For a person as null in the Force as he is, Hux has always been a sharp and brilliant presence in the very fabric of the galaxy. One destined to effect great change. Ren had known as much the first they had met. He had resented it, in fact – had immediately told himself he should hate such a man, if only on principles alone._

_It had taken them both some time to realise that that had been exactly the way Snoke had wanted it._

_“General?”_

_The repeated title has him shaking his head, rising up from where he leans forward over the console bank. “Very well.” His voice rises, directs itself towards the nearest crew. “I am taking my scheduled rest break. Lieutenant, keep an eye on proceedings. I am in my office, with Master Ren.”_

_From the collective shock of the bridge crew, shimmering bright along the leylines that move about them all, it seems this is the first Hux has taken his rest break in some time. Perhaps it is the first time, at all. But Ren cannot begrudge him this. They both have their work to do. And they have both committed themselves to this path, body and soul._

_And only when the door sighs closed at his back does Ren speak. “You need to rest.”_

_He’s already settling himself behind his desk. “Is that all?”_

_“No.” He folds his arms across his chest, leans back against the wall. “As far as I can be aware, Snoke does not know our position.” Unspoken is the fact that it will be Ren that he finds first. “But the longer we are immobile, the greater the risk of discovery.”_

_“I know this.”_

_“I realise that.” He doesn’t bother to keep the faint thread of irritation from his tone; such constant spark is only part of the attraction. “But you have enough crew remaining to you that you can risk some rest yourself.”_

_Now rubbing the back of one hand over reddened eyes, Hux glances up. “Do you really believe that I could rest, let alone sleep, with this hanging over my head?”_

_No. He does not. Not with that brilliant mind, cursed with the ability to seek out and search for all possibilities, all probabilities. Even when Hux sees the way clear to victory, he still knows all too well the pitfalls that will lead them to utter failure. Both duel in his thoughts as constant furious battle. Ren does not know it save from the outside, but it aches inside his own mind like an unexploded incendiary._

_“Can I help?”_

_“You know I don’t like you in my mind, Ren.” A glance upward, and the exhaustion on his features burns. “But the offer is appreciated.”_

_Ren only watches as Hux now takes up his datapad, as much a part of his professional person as the flared trousers, the wide-shouldered greatcoat, the shining boots and his ridiculous command cap. And Ren moves without thinking, goes to his knees at Hux’s seated side, and turns the chair to face him._

_And he looks up, eyes flaring. “Ren.” But he makes no move to turn back to the desk. “We haven’t got time for this.”_

_“But you need it.” There is no touch between them, not yet. Still Ren’s skin prickles like electric wire, thrumming and taut. “You don’t have to put the datapad down.”_

_Breathing out through his nose, Hux pauses. There, his eyes fall lightly closed, as if he is getting one of his headaches. Ren’s head aches, too. When he opens them, there are more green than blue in this dim light._

_“All right,” he says, so flat. “If it pleases you.”_

_Ren says nothing. But Hux must know it is for them both. They are in this, together, and it can be no other way._

_He’s undoing his trousers when Hux speaks again, eyes on his work. “Don’t pull them right down,” he says, too quick. “Just…to the thighs.” It takes a moment for him to clear his throat, to finish the thought. “I might need to move quickly.”_

_Ren might have said something about how the damn trousers would never hide his arousal, anyway. But then, it would not be the first time Ren had brought Hux to aching hardness on the bridge amongst his staff. They’d never know anything of the truth. They never have. It would be just the two of them, as it always had been in moments such as these._

_Looking up to him, from the ground before him, Ren shakes his head. “It won’t work. Not like that.” His hands shift up and over those narrow covered thighs, and then to the shining buckle of his perfectly hitched belt. “But I won’t take them off.”_

_The look in his eyes is telling enough: he wants to say no. But he does not. Instead Hux shifts his hips upward to allow Ren to pull both trousers and underwear down, over thighs and then knees and then calves, leaving them pooled around his ankles. Ren’s half-surprised Hux doesn’t insist he take them all the way off and hang them up, to prevent creases; certainly laundry services will have been sharply curtailed, with the power crisis aboard his ship._

_But Hux says nothing. And Ren shifts forward, to the soft curl of his dick in the neat little nest of dark red hair. Though he has no doubt both water and sonic showers are rationed tightly, Hux smells clean as always. His flesh pebbles in the slight chill of the air, and Ren sighs._

_Hux shifts, swallows, but does not look up from his datapad even as Ren lays his head to rest upon one thigh. “Ren—”_

_He leans forward, lips pressed to crease between thigh and groin. A turn of his head, and his nose ghosts along the shaft, followed by his lips. Hux’s calm is not echoed by this most private part of his self; already it hardens, so quick and so warm, even in the cool recycled air._

_He has always loved sucking Hux’s dick. He’d had little experience before he’d come to the_ Finalizer _; as Ben Solo, he’d always been too awkward, too removed from anonymity to risk much in the way of intimacy with his peers. And Kylo Ren, for all Snoke encouraged the expression of withheld emotion, had never encountered an individual who stirred anything like arousal in his mind or body. Armitage Hux had been the first._

_These days, Ren wonders if he might also be the last. It is not as dark a thought as the situation might imply. For all he is aware that Hux has enjoyed vastly more experience in such matters than he ever will – both as an academy military brat raised in closed spaces, and an ambitious individual willing to do anything to raise himself ever higher – he is also aware Hux has not sought intimacy from any other person since this began between them. And Ren has never had the desire to do the same._

_With his tongue, he moves almost casually up the shaft; at the head, there he presses lips in an open-mouthed kiss. It anoints him richly in saliva, dripping and slick; Ren chases it down, noses into the hair, smells the sharp musky scent that is so uniquely_ Hux _. And it is so warm, here, where usually he is so cold. Hux actually shivers beneath his lips as he moves up, again. And he moves a hand forward, callused fingertips light over his balls, flicking up to press hard on perineum._

_A sharply indrawn breath, above – Ren ignores it. Instead, he lays both palms upon his thighs, opens them further, leans in. It is almost too easy to swallow him down, take him whole. The first time he had done so, Hux had accused him of being less the virgin he had claimed. Ren had simply wanted it badly enough. There may be more inappropriate uses for the Force, but in that moment he hadn’t particularly cared to know them._

_But he had learned them, in time, and with this man. Working, bobbing his head, he relishes the salt-tang of precome upon his working tongue. It has been too long. And already there are hands in his hair, tight and desperate, pulling him close. The joy of it comes like an explosion in his heart and in his head; this is the most precious of victories, to know he has drawn this reaction from him, has brought him to exquisite pleasure even amongst such misery._

_Ren pulls back at the last moment. The come on his face is both warm, and welcome. Even as Hux’s hips still jerk in the aftermath of orgasm, Ren’s fingers move to his slick cock, circle it light upon the base; he is not grasping, simply: guiding. Already it begins to lose its rigidity, but Ren presses it into and then over half-opened lips, eyes fixed upon Hux’s own. He gives the faintest flicker of tongue, and Hux jerks helpless again._

_“Ren.” It’s ragged, so very raw. “What are you_ doing _?”_

_A kiss, to the head – and then, one hand reaches out for the damp wipes Hux keeps in his office for such liaisons. It is the work of mere muscle memory to clean him up, to just as carefully tuck him away into his pants. Leaning back on his booted heels, Ren does up his flies, smooths out the lines of his trousers, and nods._

_“Ren.”_

_And he rises now to his feet, his own groin aching. “It’s fine.” He flicks one bare hand to the desk, the abandoned datapad still lying there. “Keep doing what you were doing.”_

_“_ Ren _.”_

_“I’m fine.” His eyes met Hux’s own, even and dark. “You have work to do.”_

_“You’re insane.” But his gaze already drifts back to his work. “Come here, and I’ll do something for you.”_

_But Ren moves back. Seating himself on the couch, there, he holds his silence. Even in the shadows, he still sees so clearly. Even in complete darkness, he would know Hux: his aura, crimson-bright and shot through with gold. A man made for the greatest of things._

_And it is but moments before Hux sighs, not looking up from his work, but still so aware of where Ren’s hand moves in his own trousers. “Take it out, Ren.” He flicks to another screen. “If you’re going to be so lecherous, don’t bother hiding it from_ me _.”_

_His hand works over his dick, knowing and purposeful. Everything about Hus seems so sharp, so sudden: the sweep of the near-translucent eyelashes over high-boned cheeks. The pale skin, translucent as paper, and even more precious and rare. His gloved fingers, knowing and quick; the line of a clenched jaw; the shimmer of his hair, like a burning crimson crown—_

_Ren comes hard, with his eyes wide open. And Hux is rising, crossing the floor, taking his hands, looking down at him._

_“We do this together,” he says, violent and sudden. Raising his hands, Hux bends his brilliant head, and he:_ licks _the palm, in one greedy smooth line. And Ren shudders, comes impossibly again, and—_

_Hux’s lips are on his, and he rises, gathers him close and fierce, devouring him. To be as one being between them, that would be simply impossible._

_But Ren is always willing to try._

 

****

 

Hux opened his eyes. Above him he found only the anonymous ceiling of his cell, pitted and water-stained. He had never been a man to dream. But he could not comfort himself with that now. It had simply been too realistic. Even his near-eidetic memory should not have been able to grant such detail, such exquisite agony of _reality_.

And the last he had seen those events, it had been through his own eyes. Not those of Kylo Ren.

Hux raised his hands over said eyes. Drawing them back, he found dampness upon the tips of his fingers, shivering and salty. Pursing his lips together, he swallowed hard, and still his stomach roiled in rich nausea. Ren’s abilities in the Force had never been something he’d cared much to explore, outside of what he deemed strictly necessary. Given that Ren’s missions generally had little direct impact on his own work, he had never _needed_ to know. In retrospect it seemed peculiar to him now. Hux had always had an eye for detail, and had long cultivated a habit of collecting all knowledge that he might one day be able to use for his own goals.

Ren’s mind abilities, in particular, were something he had generally chosen to ignore. He knew superficial data about their application in interrogation, but he otherwise let it lie between them. There had come a few times where Ren had lost control in more intimate moments. Hux had simply tried very badly to ignore them. And whenever some traitorous part of his mind had wondered at how those same powers could elevate the experience of sex between them, he’d pushed those thoughts right down and away.

But this had been that, and so much more: Hux had been inside Ren’s mind, while Ren’s mind had been focused so utterly on _him_. His breathing trembled in an already tightened throat. Ren had offered more than once to show him what his mastery over the Force might do in an intimate situation. Hux had curtly denied it every time, and Ren had stopped offering. Then, he had never considered it a loss. But, now—

The clang of the door had him sitting bolt upright, wary, right hand with its scabbing knuckles closed tight upon the scrap of shawl. A guard stood there, flanked by two others, the barrels of their raised blasters like a pair of watchful eyes behind him.

“You have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” It had become almost too easy, to play at such lack of care. “Have they set my execution date so quickly, then?”

His lips twisted and Hux knew it, even behind his half-mask. “You haven’t even had a trial.”

“I don’t think that’s a formality anyone is going to particularly hold them to, do you?” he replied blithely, for all he bitterly understood how so many craved the circus it would inevitably become. “What true order is there left to the galaxy, now?”

“Weren’t you the one who disintegrated their central government?” Even though he himself stood unarmed, only shackles in his gloved hands, Hux could see his fingers move as if about some unseen trigger. “Seems to me you hung your own noose.”

“And I tied the knot better than they ever could,” he said, so casual in his bitterness as he rose to his aching feet. “Am I permitted to dress?”

“Well.” Something like gloating scorn entered the half-mechanised words. “It _is_ royalty come to see you.”

“… _what_?”

“General Organa.” The bastard actually sniggered, the accompanying guards giving an echoing titter behind him. “Maybe she’s planning to just cut your skinny little throat herself. Can’t see how anyone would say she didn’t have the right.”

He glanced down, then, as if to centre a world that had become a drunken lazy spin. There he found only his bare feet, suddenly seeming so very far away. It was not Ren. Not that he had expected Ren. He had seen what had happened to Ren. But this, this was—

This was his _mother_.

 

*****

 

She was like sunlight through water, strong and slender and very nearly silent as she slipped through the office door. But still Leia knew her approach. She had never given herself over to the Force in the way of her brother, of their biological father. But the Force was always with her, and it was always with Rey. And when she turned from her work, she found the younger woman leaning against the wall to her left, brow furrowed, worrying with her teeth at the nails of her right hand.

“Rey.” Every inch of the warmth in her voice she intended, even as she wished for more.  “Thank you for coming.”

Immediately she flowed to attention, stepping before the desk, eyes ever watchful. “Are you sure you wish to do this alone?” She had always been so quick, so certain of herself; the dubious gifts given to a child left to the harsh wastes of a graveyard desert. “I can come with you. The whole way, I mean.”

“No, Rey.” Gentle as she gave the words, the durasteel beneath shimmered bright. “I know what I am doing.”

She pursed her lips. “He might be a prisoner. And he might be powerless, or near enough to it.” Her eyes flickered sideways, for a moment, to the bank of datachips along the wall; then they moved back to her, calm and constant. “But you’ve seen his work. And the holos, too.”

But she hadn’t realised how much of them Rey herself must have seen. It had been a part of Leia’s own work, to gather and examine much of the Order propaganda that existed. Given the man’s actions, both with Starkiller and the rift that opened in the Order thereafter, Hux’s part in that had been of particular interest to her. He was a persuasive speaker, she would give him that much; he knew his audience, and had a sharp understanding of what would rally them to his cause. But watching him speak, shifting between soft low tones and the high rantings of a madman, ever left her with a feeling of freefall. This was not just one man. He spoke for _billions_. The disenfranchised, the defeated, the desperate.

The New Republic had been born of war, and had sworn never to allow it to happen again. But their very purpose had done nothing but allow the worst of wounds to fester and finally burst. The First Order had not created this resentment, this need for revenge. They had only given it room to grow, and then a platform to speak, and then finally an armada to ram the message home in the most pitiless of ways.

“He is only one man.” The lie left her achingly exhausted. “I can deal with him.”

Rey made no move to contradict her. It was enough that she remained where she had begun, so watchful and silent. Despite her isolated upbringing, she was less naïve than even those born to the cut-throat politics of the New Galactic Senate. But then, she had been raised to know herself first – to think of her own self first, and to trust little to anyone else. In that, perhaps she had become better suited for these days of war than even Leia Organa herself. Leia, after all, had been the one fool enough to believe that merely offering alliance and peace and freedom to the masses would be enough to make them glad to accept such gift.

“Are you ready to go, then?”

Fingertips fluttered downward, to the lightsaber belted at her hip. Leia let her eyes rest upon it. She had never held one herself. Luke had offered her lessons more than once. _No_ , she had said. _I know my way around a blaster, and that is enough for protection. I am a statesman, and I will fight all the battles I can with word and law. The time for rebels is over. We must now rebuild, and I have the Republic to help me do that, now_.

“And yet, so easily I turned back,” she murmured, for all it had been the hardest of roads. When she glanced up she found Rey had quirked a brow, more question than any words might have asked alone. Shaking her head, blinking away the blurriness of long nights and little sleep, Leia clicked the datapad off.

“Just thinking of old days.” But she could not keep the wryness from her words as she added, “Given I was raised to war, you would have thought it would be easier for me than most to recognise its return, wouldn’t you?” And now the bitterness of it all bled through, rich and aching and red. “But perhaps it is those who know war who would blind themselves the deepest. Simply to never need experience it again.”

“You are never blind, General.”

When she smiled, it was as false as any disarmament treaty the Empire had ever signed. “Oh, my dear. I have been so very blind.” But she did not look back, not yet. “Let’s go.”

The transport to the penal colony passed quicker than it perhaps had any right to; in truth, she should not be so unaccompanied. At the very least she might have asked Poe to pilot, leaving Rey free should something befall them on the way either there or back. But in reality Rey’s piloting skills were equal to his, if not superior – and her skill with the Force would be as effectively channelled through that as anything else.

Leia stared at the wash of hyperspace beyond the transparisteel. In the end, she simply did not wish to tell others of where she chose now to go. She had been to see Ben before leaving. Motionless and silent upon a bed that was more a bier, his skin washed out and cold, his dark eyes had been closed. His hair had started falling out. At first, she’d started collecting it. One night, she had forced herself to a waste disposal unit, emptying the bag out, her abdomen and chest as empty as what eventually remained in her hands.

As they dropped to a more natural speed, Leia turned her head to their destination, and then wished she had not. The sight of the planet, industrialised and grey even from such distance, never failed to turn her stomach. She kept silent as Rey murmured across the comms, confirming their credentials and flight path. As she closed the channel, Rey looked over, her lovely face set and clear.

“You’re still certain?”

Anyone else, besides her brother, she would have shut down sharply for such insubordination. “I’m sure, Rey.” And she nodded, to port. “Take us down.”

It was not the planet itself, a half-illegal mining colony, that was their target. Rather, Rey set their trajectory towards one of the rocky, misshapen moons in loose orbit. They called it the Well: the place to throw down those you had no intention of allowing to see daylight again. With lips tight, hands folded light upon her lap, Leia held her silence through their simple landing. Then she rose, still wordless; Rey moved at her side, sleek and silent, a predator scarcely tamed.

The warden had come to the pad to meet them, a middle-aged man of bloated importance and small, knowing gaze. Leia had spoken to him more than once, and every such conversation had left her skin crawling, oily and tacky with the ooze of his rancid personality. Even as he gave his effusive introductions, she returned them with only a cool nod.

“You know why I am here.”

At first, it seemed he would pout, perhaps even sulk; then, he pulled himself taller, though he scarcely stood half a head above Leia herself. “I do.” Then, with easy arrogance that spoke of how he expected such answer, “Will his transfer be soon, then?”

“We will let you know in plenty of time, Warden Bliks.” With one eyebrow raised, she inclined her head to the gaping maw that passed for an entrance to the facility. “Now, if you would?”

Though dressed in drab greens and greys, her hair coiled in utilitarian fashion, Leia knew always how to carry herself as the royalty she was. They moved deep into the heat of the cursed place. Even with no view of the prisoners, she knew what lay behind the thick weaponised walls. Only Rey herself provided any comfort: ever by her side, her power felt like the sight of blue sky through prison bars.

_Hope_.

The entrance to the warded room was where they stopped; Rey spoke first. “General.” It was with perfect deference, her words strong and clear. “I will wait here, for you.”

It would but the work of a moment, to request she come deeper still. And Leia loved her for offering that, even as she knew she could never allow such a thing. “Very good, Rey.” She extended one hand, rested it a moment on her forearm; in this moment, there might as well have been no-one else in the antechamber but the two of them. “I will not be long.”

On the other side she found a room, too bright and too small. A single table lay at its centre, occupied on its other side by one other person. The warden and one guard followed her inside, Leia leading the way without regret nor delay. Every step she kept her eyes fixed upon him, as his were fixed upon her in turn.

They had secured him to the table and to his chair. No doubt there were other precautions, for all she had made clear the conversation was not to be monitored or recorded. Taking her place at the table, Leia did not look to the man who bumbled to her side, even as he cleared his throat, paused a moment too long.

“General,” he said, at last, “if you need—”

“I can see the panic button.” She looked only to the man before her. “I will call you if I need you.”

It took long moments before they would leave, muttered words passed between warden and guard. Leia said nothing, moved not at all, even once they were at last left mercifully alone. The chamber held a distinct chill, though his eyes proved colder still. She kept her silence, even so. And he snorted, raised one slender pale eyebrow.

“General Organa.” The words were drawled, and not quite careless, his accent so perfectly Imperial it shivered through her like bitter memory. “Are you at last responding to my numerous concerns about the conditions in the facility in which you keep me?”

“Is it not to your standards, then?”

“Not entirely.” He shifted as little as his bonds would allow; she could see clear bruising even without such display, mottled upon his arms and neck: the ugly yellow-green of the old, the red-tinged black of the new. “It verges, perhaps, on a form of cruel and unusual punishment.”

“This coming from the man who gave the order to murder billions of sentient beings in one fell strike.”

Shoulders moved in just barely a shrug. “I did that, yes. But you’re the ones who are better than that.” A pause, just long enough, and then: “Aren’t you?”

The words twisted in her gut like a vibroblade; accompanying that came a sting behind her eyes, for all she’d long ago given up on tears and what they could never give her in return for their release. Still, she kept her face still, and asked only that which mattered now.

“I have questions for you.”

“I thought I had already made it clear that I will not answer them.” His hand jerked in is manacle, as if he’d intended to wave it with airy disregard. “And besides, it has been a year. What I knew might have had a period of usefulness back then, but it is certainly gone now. I know nothing of what the Order is doing now.”

“You’re still that loyal?”

Such clear scepticism left him affronted, his words almost harsh. “To what I wish the Order could become, yes.” But calculation returned in moments, his head tilting to one side. “Wouldn’t you be?” he asked, eyes glittering. “You wouldn’t ask that question of yourself, or your own soldiers.” Then, in that low cajoling tone he used so often in his speeches, “…or would you?”

Only by great force of will did she resist slapping a palm down upon the table. “Do you wish to make a deal or not?”

He scarcely blinked. “I already gave my answer.” Again, the corner of his mouth twitched in humourless smirk. “And yes, that was perhaps before I spent these many months in your questionable custody. But it hasn’t changed.”

“I can improve your conditions.”

“For what information?”

“I want to talk to you about Kylo Ren.”

For all the quickfire exchange of but seconds before, he shuttered himself away at that name – though outwardly he appeared still calmly arrogant, she could almost taste regret upon the air.

“I imagine you are more the expert on that subject than I could ever be.”

“I knew Ben Solo,” she countered, and he snorted, so easily setting his trap.

“ _Did_ you?”

Her hands clenched before she could even really consider their movement. “Will you talk?” she asked, conversational in the way she had always been when walking such tightropes. “Or shall I go?”

At first, he gave her only silence. But he broke first. She had never entirely expected that. “You swear upon your honour, then, that you will do something to improve this hell in which you have left me?”

Leia ignored the way in which his tongue curled about that word: _honour_. Still she felt the cut of this next blade of his, pushed deep and true. “Your own actions brought you here.” His face twisted, though she left no pause. “But yes. I can give you that which you scarcely deserve.”

In such bondage, he could not cross his arms, could not lean back in his chair. Still, she could hear him do both in his mind as his lips curled, and he snorted. “What is it you wish to know?” His mouth now moved to a frank scowl. “Because if it’s about Snoke, there’s precious little I could tell you.”

“Snoke is dead.”

His eyes flickered but briefly. “And good riddance.”

Sometimes she wondered if he still waited for the Order to retrieve him. He had spearheaded the coup against their so-called Supreme Leader, even though it had failed. But then, for all Snoke was now dead, it was all but impossible to know if those who had taken the leadership in his stead were of his own faction, or of Snoke’s. And even if they had been his men, one could not be certain that they wished to hand that power back to him now.

_Old men never do surrender that which they assume is theirs by right and lot_ , she thought, bitter, eyes still upon him. “You worked with Kylo Ren,” she said, too sharp; he pushed back into his chair, taking small victory where he could.

“Yes.” He almost smiled. “Obviously.”

She would not be goaded by so childish a tactic. “What was your relationship with him?”

In turn he spoke slow, exaggerated. “We _worked_ together.”

“You have his cloak.”

That gave him pause. Leia could not see it, but – she could _sense_ it, like the memory of a child’s laughter, of small fat hands dug into her hair, trying desperately to learn how to coil and braid and pin it all up with such grace. And Hux met her gaze with a poise she did not believe, said flatly, “Call it a token of times gone by.”

“No-one can take it from you.”

Though he spoke with offhand ease, the air all bur vibrated with sudden suspicion. “Do _you_ plan to?”

“No.” She meant it honestly enough. “But I do want to know why.”

At first he remained only watchful. “I fucked him, you know.” It was said almost conversationally, even as it hit her as square as a blow to the solar plexus. “And he was all but a virgin when it started. I bent him over my desk and I fucked him until he screamed. And then I had him suck my dick, from right down on his knees. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Her throat worked, tight and aching, but her words came clear and controlled. “You had power over him.”

“Over Kylo Ren?” Here he snorted; the vague thump seemed to be one of his bound heels kicking back against the leg of his chair. “Are you asking if I was the one to get him out from under Snoke’s control?” Now he chuckled, tilted his head again in teasing grace. “What, does it bother you that I could do that which you never could?”

Anger curled in her gut; the air turned warm about her, even as she pressed lips tight together. It came so hard, now: to form words instead of a snarled cry of rage, wrathful mother roused to fury to defend her cubs. Instead she only stared at him. He seemed so small and nearly pitiful, in this reduced form.

But his eyes had changed not at all. Still so very cold, and so very calm. He might have been almost handsome, once; in his holos he had certainly been charismatic and attractive in a way that reminded her of more flashy senators, even in his drab perfect uniform. But here he had become only a prisoner, as Force-null to her perception as she might have expected of one such as him. Yet he still held secrets locked inside that not even this place could break from him.

“Was it just sex, then?”

“Does it matter?” It came so crude, so easy. “He was a decent enough fuck, if you must know. Quick enough to learn. Eager, too.” But the words were not as careless as they seemed when he added with airy disregard, “Not that I ever let anyone else have a turn.”

“Did he show you the Force?”

That gave him pause, if only for the merest of seconds. “Why?” And his lips stretched wide, eyes suddenly sparking with sharp malice. “Did _you_ show his father, when you were fucking him?”

Everything in her vision blurred to red, sharp and dissonant; only a gasping sound brought her back to sharp consciousness of her surroundings, and the man writhing in his bonds before her. Even as her vision cleared, the air becoming less of a fire in her throat and lungs, she saw him draw a deep gasp of air himself. And then Hux looked up, face flushed, throat working beneath fresh bruising. “Well,” he ground out, breathless and bent forward, “there’s something of your father in you, after all.”

It might have hurt, once. When she had believed that could never be true. “Yes,” she said, toneless and flat. “There is.” And before he could wrestle a scornful grin back upon his damnable face, she spoke whipcrack quick. “So were you just fucking my son, or were you actually good enough to earn his affection?” And then, carefully, light, “Or his _love_?”

His spine went ramrod straight, his eyes cold, for all his voice remained conversational enough. “What business is that of yours?”

“Do you want better accommodations, or not?”

And he laughed – he actually _laughed_ , a strange broken sound as discordant as a tuneless instrument. “What does it _matter_? He’s _dead_.” And he clamped his mouth shut on the outburst, even as her own eyes widened; when he spoke again, it was with mutinous disgust. “I don’t care about your deal. Forget it. I’m done with this conversation.”

She chose her next words careful and slow. “And if I am not?”

“Talk to the walls, for all I care.” Very pale, his eyes too bright, he sneered at her with all the pride of the dead Imperials. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

“You don’t wish for something better?”

It had been a worthless question, and they both knew it. “You’re going to kill me anyway.” Tilting his chin upward, he set his jaw, said evenly: “And at this stage, I just wish you’d get on with it.”

She could stay. She could push harder. Leia rose instead, moved away and to the closed door. His eyes burned the space between her shoulders, silent, accusing. His agony was like needles in the Force, jabbed beneath her skin and into the tender aching flesh. Never once did she look back. Almost immediately the warden came to her side, his words a jabbering blur she saw no need to make sense of.

Only Rey, close at her side, gave her any sense of reality as they began the long walk back to their ship. She said not a word at any step of the way. For that, Leia only loved her all the more: this brilliant, brightly shining beacon, anchored so firmly in even these darkest of places.

_But then_ , her mind whispered in traitorous glee, _Rey is no freer of darkness than you are yourself. How else could it have crept so easily into the mind of your blood and bone—_

“It didn’t go well.”

The abruptness of the words scarcely seemed to surprise Rey, and certainly did not distract her from the continuing pre-flight checks. “Did you expect it to?”

“No.” Leia examined the belts in her lap and over her shoulders, for all they were long since tightly fastened. “But I do know one thing, for sure.”

“What?”

She kept it to herself, at first. Rey allowed it, her eyes ever forward and her voice a low murmur as she left the loading platform, left the thin atmosphere of the ragged little moon. Only when they had left the airspace of the planet itself did Leia breathe, again, her voice low and hoarse.

“He knew how to love.” Bleak, she shook her head, looked to the stars beyond her reach – empty, now, of at least one. “They both knew how to love, and still – they did _this_.”

Rey remained only silent in turn as the ship moved at last to lightspeed, and then away into the endless darkness of open space.


End file.
